White people throughout history have been associated with intellect, rationality, and reason. They were often positioned as capable of abstract thought and intellectual pursuits, detached from physicality and emotion. This disembodiment of the mind was intertwined with colonial ideologies and the belief that white people were the bearers of civilization, enlightenment, and progress.

Black people on the other hand, have been historically associated with physicality, labour, and the material world. This framing, often rooted in slavery, colonialism, and racialised oppression, relegated Black bodies to physical work and perceived us as closer to nature and animality.

We were seen as vessels for physical strength, endurance, and manual labour, disconnected from intellectual or emotional depth. In a society that valued reason and intellect, Blackness was rendered as the opposite—defined not by the mind, but by the body, and often subject to violence, commodification, and exploitation.